This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. We are now in the midst of a three-week practice intensive in this valley. There are about 90 people participating. We welcome those 90 people and we welcome all of you who have come here into the valley this morning. We welcome you to the teachings of awakening. I said to the group that are here for the three weeks,

[01:04]

a few days ago that it seemed to me that they were very joyful to be here for this great opportunity to intensively practice for three weeks. Very joyful. They seem so happy to be together with other people who We're happy to be together with other people who want to be here to practice. So joyful. And the joy is still here. It's wonderful. It's the joy of practicing the truth for the welfare of this world. There are other kinds of joy, of course.

[02:05]

Like the joy of your favorite political candidate winning an election. Some people feel joy about that. That's a good, that's a joy. But it's not the same joy that people feel being here. This is the joy of wishing to and being able to practice a life for the welfare of this world. And also people in this valley, probably maybe everybody in this valley, is aware of unbearable, horrible suffering all around us, all around this planet. Suffering of humans and plants and animals. Even the mountains are crying.

[03:07]

And their tears run down the mountainside into the ocean. So we feel joy at the possibility that we could do something really good in this world. And we also feel great pain for all the suffering. And this pain for all the suffering is compassion. Compassion is joyful and it's painful. It's joyful because we want to help and it's painful because people we love are suffering. And again, I imagine that people in this intensive, and I even go so far as to imagine that everybody who came into the valley this morning, that all of you want to do something good in this world, want to do something beneficial, something helpful to suffering beings.

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I imagine that. You didn't all tell me that. but I have that thought that that's what you're here for because that's what you really want when I said that a thought fleeted into my mind which I didn't tell you but now I'll tell you the thought is that our founder of this temple and city center and Tassajara and really the background of many Zen centers around the United States the founder our great teacher, Shinryu Suzuki Roshi, came because he wanted to give America something really good. I didn't remember him saying that, but I think that's so. I heard he said that. And he did come and he gave us something really good.

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He gave us a great blessing. He gave us his practice. He gave us his life. And it was very helpful. And still is. Maybe you all want to give your life to be of help in this world of suffering. And maybe you feel very good about that aspiration. and you may also still feel horrified of the cruelty of the suffering from other humans and also the suffering from natural disasters floods and fires earthquakes we want to help

[06:31]

all those people too that are suffering from natural torment and for those who wish to live to help beings be free for those who wish to make an unceasing effort to free all beings from suffering so that we can live in peace. For those beings, there are teachings. There is a vast ocean of teachings for these beings who wish to understand the truth in order to help all beings. And this ocean of teachings is sometimes called the universal vehicle of the Buddha.

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The practice for all people who wish to help all people and all beings and all plants and the mountains and the rivers and the trees and the grasses and the forests. The people who want to help are called bodhisattvas. and there are many great scriptures giving teachings for these bodhisattvas giving teachings about reality giving teachings about how to practice During this retreat, we are offering some of our attention, we are offering a lot of our attention to a great scripture, which is called the Great Extensive Buddha Flower Adornment Scripture.

[08:52]

The scripture originally came into the world in the minds of beings who were meditating on the Buddhist teaching and had great illuminations and sang songs of their illuminations and their songs got written down and became eventually this great sutra. In Sanskrit. Maha Vaipulya. Buddha Avatamsaka Sutra. Translated in English, you already know. Do you remember? Great, extensive Buddha flower adornment scripture. This is a huge scripture. 2,600 pages in English translation. scrolls in Chinese this sutra is for bodhisattvas and it is particularly important in our little Zen school in our little Zen family it is very fundamental to our practice and in this huge sutra it says a number of times I don't know how many

[10:33]

It says a number of times that every atom in the universe contains oceans of scriptures. It says that every particle of the sutra contains the whole sutra and infinite sutras. That's what the scripture says. Every practice, the sutra says. embraces and includes all practices. For me, this is an encouragement to take care of the practice, because whatever practice we're doing contains a universe of practices. And so this teaching is that taking care of this practice, this moment, takes care of all practices. times so the practice right now should be given 100 percent wholehearted practice and it's not just for the practitioner here it's for all beings even those who don't think they're practicing they are included in our practice this sutra teaches us so this is perhaps an encouragement to us

[12:02]

to really be wholehearted in every practice. It isn't just for us. We're not doing it by ourselves. Everybody's included, and it is for everybody. Everybody's helping us, and it helps everybody. The great scripture says that. Uncountable times. Well, actually, probably somebody could count it, but thousands of times this scripture has time to say that. So one could pick one little verse from the scripture, and that one little verse would contain 2,600 pages and also an ocean of other scriptures. So I shall pick one verse, one teaching of the Buddha to help those who wish to benefit this whole world. Are you ready for this one little teaching from this huge scripture?

[13:13]

This is a teaching, by the way, that you could remember. After you leave here, you can remember and tell people in Mill Valley about it. And Oakland and San Jose and Petaluma, you could spread this teaching and you wouldn't have to say a word. But every word you say will contain this teaching. All right, so what's the teaching? The teaching is clearly observed. The Dharma of the King of Dharma. The Dharma of the King of Dharma is thus. That's the little teaching. The Dharma is of the Buddha is thus and that stanza and also the word thus contains all the teachings of the Buddha but I'm giving you this particle to take care of and to use

[14:37]

for the sake of the welfare of the world. One of the founders of our tradition in China, he sang a song, and it got written down. And the song starts out, the teaching of thus, the Dharma of thus. His song starts with quoting one line, of this massive teaching. And the one line he chose to sing about to his assembly was, the teaching of thus. And then he elaborated a little bit and said, intimate transmission intimate communion.

[15:41]

And then he said, Buddha ancestors, this teaching of thus four bodhisattvas is intimate transmission. It is an intimate communion. Buddhas and Buddha ancestors. What is that teaching? Thus. And then the ancestor says, now you have it. Now you have this teaching of thus. Please take care of it. There's so many ways to take care of it. Right now, this is the way I'm endeavoring to take care of it.

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And the sutra says, please be creative and take care of it in your daily life. As I said before, we have entered this valley to learn how to take care of all beings, to learn teachings which will help us. This is one of the teachings I just told you about. And we will consider more for a while. then, once having arrived here, the people in the intensive are devoted to coming into this room from early in the morning till late at night and sitting.

[18:09]

The people who want to benefit this world come into this room sit. And they sit in silence and stillness. We don't make the silence. We don't make the stillness. We come in and sit in it. We practice teaching of thus by sitting upright in silence and stillness. And sitting in this silence and stillness

[19:16]

we enter into a state of body and mind which sometimes is said to be called concentration. Also sometimes called meditation. And in Sanskrit it's called samadhi. And samadhi can be translated as concentration. as meditation but it could also be translated as undistracted calm we come and we sit in silence and stillness and enter into undistracted presence the whole world still going on all around us and throughout us we are still surrounded by suffering and we enter into being undistracted in the middle of the suffering undistracted from what?

[20:31]

from our wish to be helpful and from and also we enter into awareness of the teaching of thus so we can understand and realize what's actually helpful. And this concentration, this samadhi, this meditation, this bodhisattva meditation is not about me doing something by myself. Some people do practice concentration and they think they're doing it by themselves. It still might be good, like, you know, like a carpenter or a cook might be quite concentrated in their work, undistracted,

[21:45]

That's a samadhi. And the bodhisattva carpenter and the bodhisattva cook is also planing or cooking in this samadhi. But the bodhisattva samadhi is not being undistracted by themselves. It is being undistracted together with everybody and everything. And then in that undistracted presence, which is open and relaxed, it's not a tight concentration. It's an open and relaxed concentration. It's present with something and open to everything.

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This is the kind of meditation, the kind of samadhi of the bodhisattva. And it's also like a doctor. Like a surgeon. is present with other beings and one of the other beings might be called the patient but they're present these days anyway they're often present with many other people helping them and there's many other who are in the operating room supporting this activity of being present with this patient and performing surgery for the welfare of the patient.

[23:57]

And we want this... We want this surgeon to be concentrated. And the surgeon wants to be concentrated unless the surgeon has gone insane. And the patient wants the... surgeon to be concentrated to be undistracted and really whether the patient knows it or not the patient wants the surgeon to be relaxed the patient doesn't want the surgeon to be tense when they pick up their tools it wants them to pick them up with complete composure and total compassion This is the Bodhisattva Samadhi. And this surgeon cannot be that way by herself. She can't be that way without the patient.

[25:05]

And the patient can also, although we don't usually think about it, the patient can also be undistracted, can be Relaxed. And actually often, as you know, the patient is quite relaxed with the aid, you might say, you might say of the anesthetic. But it's not just the anesthetic that is aiding them to be relaxed with their body being cut open. It's the anesthesiologist. It's the whole tradition of anesthesiology. All that is helping the patient be relaxed and open to this process. Open to being opened. Open to being healed. This is the Bodhisattva Samadhi.

[26:10]

There's no limit to the people who are supporting this surgical operation. Not too long ago, I went in to an operating room and a vascular surgeon who is very present every time I meet her and was very present before the procedure started. And after it started, I don't know what she was up to, but I think she was very present with me. And what we don't usually mention is I was very present with her. She did this wonderful procedure on me of opening up my aorta in my abdomen. How wonderful. So the blood could flow more fully into my dear little thighs.

[27:20]

And I could walk up these hills without burning thighs. So skillful. But the teaching of the sutra is also saying, I was there too. Now you can say my surgical skills are not... equivalent to hers. That's true. But they include each other. My surgical skills include all the surgical skills of all the surgeons in the universe. And same with yours. That's the teaching of the scripture. And someone might say, that is totally fantastic. That's just, I don't know what. It's just wondrous and inconceivable. The teaching of this sutra is about the truth, and the truth is fantastic.

[28:25]

It's beyond our usual conception. And to talk about the truth, you have to become free. We have to become free. Our ideas of what's going on. We're working on that. It's a work in progress to be free of our ideas of what's happening. It's not that you shouldn't have ideas of what's happening. It's just that if you hold on to them, that causes a lot of trouble to everybody. Of course, it causes stress and suffering for you, but you include everybody, so you're stressing everybody when you hold on to your idea of the way things are. And all day long, you probably have ideas of the way things are. And so do I. But my job is to take care of the teaching of thus, which says, what's going on here is thus, not just what you think is going on here.

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And the teaching of thus can also unfold into some feedback of saying, you look like you're holding on to your ideas. And that could take the form of a person, an old person, or a baby telling you, you're holding on to your ideas of what's going on. Would you please stop that? Let go. It could be an old person or a baby. And you might have some ideas about that. Like, no, it could only be an old person. No, it could only be a baby. If we have trouble remembering this teaching and accepting it and understanding it, that trouble is another particle of experience in the universe.

[30:43]

And that trouble is given the teaching of thus. And if this teaching is given by the Buddha of the flower adornment scripture and it's also given by the Buddhas of our Chinese tradition who repeated that teaching and said this thus is about communion wholehearted communion So when we see injustice, when we see cruelty, when we see delusion and all other kinds of suffering, we aspire to practice justice with injustice.

[32:00]

The Bodhisattva aspires to practice justice in the midst of injustice. The Bodhisattva aspires to practice kindness in the midst of cruelty. The Bodhisattva aspires to practice joyful compassion in the midst of suffering. the bodhisattva practices the teaching of thus in the midst of delusion. Bodhisattva does not try to get rid of delusion, does not try to get rid of suffering, does not try to get rid of injustice. If somebody can get rid of those things, the bodhisattva does not try to get rid of those people who got rid of

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those terrible things but in the whole history of Buddhism we have not gotten rid of these things but we have been practicing with them all along and if they keep coming up we will continue the bodhisattvas will continue to practice this samadhi this undistracted openness to the whole universe the whole universe of all kinds of affliction and in this way Liberate beings from injustice, from cruelty, from violence, from delusion, from all suffering. Now, if somebody tries to get rid of these things, they can still be a bodhisattva, but the teaching for that person is not what they're doing at that time. They are included in the teaching.

[34:07]

So I have been asked to limit the duration of this meeting this morning and I'm okay with that. I imagine some of you are okay with it too. And maybe This has been long enough for some of you. And even if it's not long enough, you still might want to leave soon. And you came to leave. On the other hand, I would like to ask you, did you remember that teaching about the teaching of the king of teaching? Do you remember the Dharma? of the King of Dharma. Do you remember it? Anybody not remember it? Yes. Easy, right?

[35:12]

The teaching of the King of Dharma, the teaching of the Buddha, is thus. Now you have it. Are you ready to take care of it? I saw one person nodding. Two. Three. Four. That's great. Four teachings. caregivers of the teaching of the Buddha which is thus that statement occurs more than once in the scripture but in this temple we do it almost every day we say the teaching of thus the teaching of thusness what is it thus and asking that question is thus we encourage receiving these teachings, and we encourage questioning them. Without questioning them, or put it positively, part of this communion, which is this teaching, this teaching is a communion, part of the communion is to call the teaching into question.

[36:22]

And if anybody says the teaching, like a so-called sayer of the teaching, If any sayer of the teaching says the teaching, then the teaching of thus requires that person being called into question. The teaching of thus, which is for the sake of establishing for the moment justice, the one who is teaching about thus justice, requires being called into question. intimate questioning about what they said about justice. So again, I wish to work together with everybody to create justice in the world of injustice. But in that process, my efforts, whatever they are, like my effort to sit,

[37:29]

can be for the sake of creating together with you justice but you can also question me like what's that sitting got to do with justice the sitting in samadhi with the teaching and with in communion with all beings that is where beings are helped They're helped in that samadhi. They're helped in that communion. The benefit of the world happens in communion, in conversation. It happens in us sitting in silence and stillness. What? The benefit of the world happens in us sitting in silence and stillness. What? The benefit of the world lives in us sitting in silence and stillness. in communion with the whole universe not to mention a few hundred people in this room and a few hundred people online watching us again you may say well they're actually watching you but actually i include you and you include me so they're watching all of us right now and it's really hard for us to understand that we're watching all of them

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but we are. When you look at me, you're watching everybody who's online. But you can't see that. And I can't either. And that's what the sutra teaches us. What does the sutra teach us? Clearly know that all phenomena have no existence whatsoever in their own being. Clearly no, nothing exists on its own. If you have this understanding, you can see the Buddha right now. And you can see the people online right now. But all the people you see and all the Buddhas you see have no existence whatsoever on their own. They do have existence in some conditional way, but that's not what they are. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

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Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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